Voice telecommunication has traditionally been conducted via dedicated telephone networks using telephone switching offices and either wired or wireless connections for transmitting the voice signal between users' telephones. Such telecommunications, which use the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), may be referred to as circuit-switched communications. Because of the circuit-based nature of the PSTN, modifying a connection by setting up circuits and implementing routing changes can be a relatively slow process that often requires manual intervention. If considered in the context of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model, PSTN modifications generally occur on layers one, two, and three. Another disadvantage of the PSTN is that, despite most conversations including significant intervals of silence, each call requires a dedicated point-to-point circuit throughout its duration, resulting in inefficient use of network bandwidth.
Session-over-Internet-Protocol (SoIP) provides an alternative telecommunication architecture using discrete internet-protocol (IP) packets of digitized data to transmit media content over the Internet or within an intranet via wired and/or wireless connections. One type of SoIP technology, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP), is becoming increasingly popular. VoIP technology provides an alternative to the PSTN for voice communications. SoIP technology can transmit other forms of multimedia communication such as video voice content, video content and/or data. Because SoIP technology is based on IP packet switching, SoIP connections and routes can be defined and managed quickly. Also, because SoIP does not require a dedicated circuit between endpoints throughout a session (e.g., a voice call), SoIP technology makes more efficient use of network bandwidth.
A Session Controller (SC) and/or its related functionality is a part of a SoIP network. When a SC is located at the border of a network (e.g., where the SoIP network connects with another network such as a private enterprise network), it is typically called a Session Border Controller (SBC). A SC or SBC facilitates the flow of two-way SoIP traffic between different parts of a network or between different networks. Without a SC or SBC, network “firewalls” may interfere with the flow of SoIP traffic.
In many situations, it is economically advantageous to subdivide large resources so that the subdivided resources can be sold or leased to separate customers. Known SoIP SCs, however, do not provide for such a subdivision of their session-capacity resources.